Ok. You cant really create taper or cut off all the branches off 200 year old collected material in fact not many people in Aus really know what to do with the challenge of collected stock.Hector Johnson wrote:That's true of almost any stock you buy from a specialist grower or that you collect, [Jon]. I think it's hilarious when I hear that someone has "collected a ready-made bonsai from a small, natural bowl in a rock, high on a windswept cliff face, above the snowline, blah blah blah..." Bonsai is a compromise between age, the habits of the species, your luck in getting branches to grow in startegic spots and your skill in creating the taper, perspective and impression of age necessary to develop an aesthetically pleasing design.
You take what you get and work from there. It's why we pick through the plants in the stock area or in the backlot of the nursery, looking for something that new, young plants just don't possess. It's equally hilarious to hear someone preparing to grow a masterpiece from some "bonsai seeds". I just hope they got a lot of them for the cow they were meant to sell.
Australia has a huge amount of collected stock unused in Styrofoam boxes as they don't know what to do with it.
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But, you cant make good bonsai from seed?
I beg to differ here. I will direct your attention to bonsai today 12. It shows what you can produce in ten years for seed.
Again you don't see anything like it here as people forget the horticultural side of bonsai and only focus on the art.
That is why people pick through the back lot at nurseries, and often find stock they think is good, not that is actually good.
Sadly no one is willing to admit it and try to fix it.
